View all Articles
Commentary By Ken Girardin

Progressives Cheer as Mamdani Robs the Future to Waste Money in the Present

Cities, Economics Urban Governance, New York City, Tax & Budget

Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images

The socialists have been swooning ever since Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced he had managed to balance New York City’s $125 billion budget.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) acclaimed the new mayor for confronting “a huge budget deficit” and bringing it “down to zero,” while still boosting spending.

“This Man is a LEGEND,” gushed Mamdani superfan Ryan Rozbiani on X.

“Something that nobody else could do,” marveled lefty influencer Suzie Rizzio.

Funny how these progressives don’t acknowledge how Mamdani is doing it: by burdening future taxpayers with pension costs he’s refusing to pay now. So much for being the party of the working man.

Mamdani has spent his career bemoaning “austerity,” a label reflexively applied to almost any effort to constrain the growth of government spending.

The mayor doesn’t want to be accused, by public employee unions or his fellow Democratic socialists, of practicing austerity — so instead he’s using a feature in the way New York City pays for pensions to make the next mayor do it instead.

Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post

______________________

Ken Girardin is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.